


Mecum Bibe

by Murf1307



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Ancient Greece & Rome, Alternate Universe - Historical, M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-15
Updated: 2013-04-15
Packaged: 2017-12-08 15:13:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/762838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Murf1307/pseuds/Murf1307
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Enjolras is the leader of the group of conspirators who kill Caesar, and Grantaire is his last remaining supporter.  It is the night before Phillipi.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mecum Bibe

There’s only you and him left by now. The other conspirators — revolutionaries, he’d insisted on calling them, but you like the bitter taste of the former word much better over the sickly sweetness of the wine you’re drinking — the others are dead by reactivist proscriptions, or else fled and betrayed him to save their own lives.

The two of you are the only ones left, as it stands. Only his little army will put a buffer between you and death, between him and death, and while they — and you — will follow him into the very jaws of death itself, it’s a dark knowledge that death is coming.

He sends his captains away, and you would reach for him, but you haven’t the courage to touch the man you dare call your Apollo.

Instead, you say, “Drink with me.” There is a pause, and you toast him. “To days gone by.”

“You know I do not indulge as you do,” he reproaches you gently. He can afford to be gentle with the others gone. In company, he is harsh, giving orders like he owns you —

_(he does, he does, he owns you heart and soul like a slave and doesn’t even know that he does but he does and you l —)_

— but here, in his tent with his captains gone, he is gentle with you.

“Do you fear to die? Will the world remember you when you fall?” You know the world will not remember you except as an afterthought to him, if even that.

He hardens, about to speak, but you keep going. “Can it be your death means nothing at all? Is your life just another lie?”

“Why must you do this?” he asks you, jaw set, and he is beautiful. “Why do you speak of futility, yet follow me even through this? I did not ask you to bloody your hands with me, did not ask you to follow me into this, and you do not believe the Republic can be saved. Why do you stand with me here? Why do you stand with me, when you have no conviction for anything, when there is nothing here you believe in?”

“I believe in you,” you say quietly.

“Be serious.”

“I am wild,” you counter, offering him the cup from which you were drinking.

He knows the magnitude of that, because you do not do this, not to a man like him. You know that he will not take the cup to drink from it, but to take it from you entirely. And here you offer it freely, your arm extended to press it to his chest.

Your name falls from his lips, his hand curling around yours on the cup as he takes it and sets it aside. He understands, now, at least in part, but he doesn’t let go of your hand as he stares at you as if with new eyes. You look away, because his touch and his look burn at you, threaten to annihilate you where you stand and form the dust into a new man that bears your name.

“You would die for me,” he mutters, and laughs bitterly. You are well aware of the irony in that. “You are going to die for me, because you believe in me.”

You nod. “Yes.”

He steps closer, gingerly, as if afraid to spook you. You are afraid, yes, but not of him, never of him.

You fear yourself, that somehow you are pulling him down with you. You have been a wretched thing for years, cynicism and alcohol numbing you just enough from the world that you get by, but he has cracked you open, and your lifeblood runs for him, because of him, and you’ll die for that, because you dare not see a world without him in it.

“Will you look at me?” he asks, and you do. You meet his eyes, and he is more afraid than you have ever seen him.

He pulls you closer, slowly, and you surge to meet him, suddenly, knowing this to be the only chance because tomorrow you will die on the field at Phillipi. He stills, then folds around you, a shuddering breath against the junction of your neck and shoulder. You know that he feels your fear, and you wonder if —

No. That thought is madness, even still, even now. You are unworthy.

He presses his lips to your skin, three burning kisses up the column of your throat to nestle a fourth against your hairline behind your jaw, nose buried in your dark curls. You can’t help but shudder, because he has set you alight again, and you cling to the flame.

“I didn’t know,” he whispers, drawing back to press your foreheads together, apologetic.

“You couldn’t have,” you say.

He smiles ruefully. “I wish I had.”

Then he kisses you, one hand twining with one of yours, and you are past caring about the way Death breathes down your necks, wearing Caesar’s shape.

After all, you only have tonight, so you must make the most of it.


End file.
